Adaptive combined order management

ABSTRACT

In some examples, a computing device may receive, from a first user device, a communication indicating a request to create a combined order for items offered by one or more merchants. For example, the combined order may enable a plurality of users to independently purchase individual ones of the items from the one or more merchants. The combined order may be created having an initial condition and may be accessible by the plurality of users for adding items to the combined order. At least one selection of a respective item may be received from each user of the plurality of users. For instance, each selection may change the condition of the combined order. In addition, the computing device may process the items added to the combined order as a single order to perform at least one action.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of, and claims priority to, U.S.patent application Ser. No. 14/978,307, filed Dec. 22, 2015, issued asU.S. Pat. No. 10,262,292, which is a continuation of, and claimspriority to, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/625,680, filed Feb. 19,2015, issued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,269,103, which applications areincorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND

People enjoy eating quality food that is prepared by good restaurants.Nevertheless, sometimes people may not want to go to a restaurant, butinstead may prefer to have food delivered to them. To meet this demand,a courier may deliver food prepared by a restaurant to a customer at adelivery location. For example, a service may enable customers to orderfood items from any of a variety of restaurants, and may arrange forcouriers to deliver the food items from the restaurants to thecustomers. Typically, there may be additional expenses associated withhaving the food items delivered to the customer, such as forcompensating the courier for delivery of the food items. Consequently,customers may prefer to minimize the additional expenses associated withhaving the food items delivered to them.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The detailed description is set forth with reference to the accompanyingfigures. In the figures, the left-most digit(s) of a reference numberidentifies the figure in which the reference number first appears. Theuse of the same reference numbers in different figures indicates similaror identical items or features.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example environment for ordering combined ordersfor delivery according to some implementations.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example user interface for combining orders fordelivery according to some implementations.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example user interface for combining orders fordelivery according to some implementations.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example user interface for combining orders fordelivery according to some implementations.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating an example process for combiningorders for delivery according to some implementations.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram illustrating an example process for combiningorders for delivery according to some implementations.

FIG. 7 illustrates select components of one or more example servicecomputing devices according to some implementations.

FIG. 8 illustrates select components of an example buyer deviceaccording to some implementations.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Some implementations herein provide technological innovations for anovel ecosystem in which buyers, who want to place orders for delivery,are motivated to provide an opportunity for other buyers to participatein combined orders. In some examples, a first buyer who is placing anorder is provided with an incentive to actively solicit other buyers toparticipate in a combined order with the first buyer, thereby benefitingboth the first buyer and the other buyers. The technology herein employsa plurality of computing devices, mobile devices, and location sensorsto provide a novel technological arrangement that enables buyers tocombine orders for delivery with other buyers, regardless of whether thebuyers know each other or not.

Further, the technology herein can allow any person with a mobile deviceto immediately become a courier, or cease to be a courier, in a couriernetwork that provides delivery services for delivery of items frommerchants to buyers. Through the interaction of computing devices,mobile devices, and location sensors, implementations herein can managean unpredictable sharing ecosystem in which a large number of people areable to start serving as couriers, or cease serving as couriers, asnecessary, to accommodate ever changing circumstances and conditions ofthe merchants, the buyers, the service region, and the couriersthemselves. Consequently, the technology disclosed herein enablesefficient crowdsourcing of courier services in an on-demand manner froma varying group of people for providing a delivery service to merchantsand buyers, and which can further enable buyers to minimize deliveryexpenses by combining orders to be delivered by the couriers.

Some implementations described herein include techniques andarrangements for combining orders for items that are to be delivered tomultiple different buyers. As one example, a first buyer may use anapplication on a first buyer device to create a first order by selectingone or more items, such as food items, offered by a first merchant, suchas a restaurant. The first buyer device may further send a communicationto one or more other buyer devices within a threshold proximity to thefirst buyer device. For instance, the communication may indicate thatthe first buyer is placing an order for one or more items from the firstmerchant, and may invite the nearby buyers to place an order that may becombined with the first order created by the first buyer. In some cases,the first buyer and the other buyers may be motivated to create acombined order based on an incentive, such as a reduction in an amountof a delivery fee that will be paid by the buyers. For example, thedelivery fee for the combined order may be divided between the firstbuyer and any other buyers who decide to place an order, therebyresulting in a discounted fee to the buyers who participate in thecombined order.

As one example, a second buyer who has an instance of the buyerapplication installed on the second buyer device may receive acommunication inviting the second buyer to place an order that may becombined with the first order of the first buyer. The second buyer mayuse the buyer application to select one or more items to purchase fromthe first merchant, thereby creating a second order that is associatedwith the second buyer. Subsequently, at least one of the first buyer orthe second buyer may send the combined order to a service computingdevice of a service provider. The service provider may send the combinedorder to the first merchant, who may prepare the ordered items. Theservice provider may arrange for a courier to pick up the ordered itemsand deliver the items to the first buyer and the second buyer, such asat a common delivery location. Accordingly, because the courier only hasto make one pickup and one delivery, a delivery fee associated with thecombined order may be divided between the first buyer and the secondbuyer.

The buyers may be able to create a combined order using any of severaldifferent techniques. For instance, a first buyer may use a buyerapplication on the first buyer device, e.g., a mobile computing deviceor other type of computing device, as enumerated elsewhere herein, tostart an order. The first buyer may interact with a graphic userinterface (GUI) presented by the application to select one or more itemsfor delivery from a particular merchant. The first buyer may select anoption presented by the buyer application to determine whether there areother nearby buyers who may be interested in creating a combined orderwith the first buyer. In some examples, the application may only contactnearby buyers who are already known to the first buyer, while in otherexamples, the application may contact any nearby buyer who also has aninstance of the buyer application installed on that buyer's device, andwho has indicated a desire to receive such communications. In someinstances, the application may send to the other buyer devices at leasta portion of the first order information of the first buyer, such as anidentity of the particular merchant from which the first buyer intendsto order the one or more items. Further, in some cases, the applicationmay send to the other buyer devices additional order information, suchas first buyer identifying information, first buyer delivery location,the one or more items that the first buyer has selected to order,comments by the first buyer or other buyers about the particularmerchant, or the like.

In some implementations, the buyer application may limit the buyerdevices contacted for forming a combined order to those buyer devicescurrently within a threshold proximity to the first buyer device. Forinstance, the buyer application may access a wireless communicationinterface on the buyer device, such as a Wi-Fi communication interface,BLUETOOTH® low energy (BLE) communication interface, or the like. Theapplication may communicate with any other devices that have the buyerapplication installed and that have access to the same Wi-Fi accesspoint, or that are within radio communication range using, e.g., BLEcommunications or other close range wireless communication technologies,such as infrared communications. As another example, the buyerapplication may communicate with a geo-fence set up for a particulararea within which the first buyer device is currently located, and thebuyer application may send the invitation only to other buyer devicesdetermined to be within the geo-fenced area.

A second buyer who receives the invitation to join in a combined ordercan create a second order to be added to the first order to create acombined order. For instance, the buyer application may present a menuassociated with the particular merchant in a GUI on the second buyer'sdevice. The second buyer may select one or more items as a second orderassociated with the second buyer. Accordingly, the combined order mayinclude the first order associated with the first buyer, and the secondorder associated with the second buyer. Either the first buyer or thesecond buyer may send the combined order information to a servicecomputing device of the service provider. For instance, the first buyermay send both the first order and the second order, the second buyer maysend both the first order and the second order, or the first buyer maysend the first order and the second buyer may send the second order, andat least one of the sent orders may include an indication that it is tobe combined with the other sent order.

As another example, the first buyer may use the buyer application toselect one or more items for placing a first order with a particularmerchant. The first buyer may send the first order information to theservice computing device and may further indicate a desire to create acombined order. The service computing device may determine a deliverylocation for the first order, which in some cases may be the same as thecurrent location of the first buyer device, or an address specified bythe first buyer when providing the first order information. The servicecomputing device may send a communication to other buyer devices withina threshold distance of the delivery location, informing the otherbuyers of the opportunity for creating combined order from theparticular merchant. If another buyer is interested in ordering from theparticular merchant, the other buyer may respond to the invitation withone or more selected items as a second order associated with the otherbuyer.

As another example, when a second buyer opens the buyer application toplace an order, the service computing device may determine that thedelivery location of the second buyer is within a threshold distance ofthe delivery location of the first buyer. Based on this, the servicecomputing device may send an offer for a discounted delivery fee if thesecond buyer orders from the particular merchant, such as before a timelimit agreed to by the first buyer expires.

The service provider receives the second order information from thesecond buyer and may associate the second order information with thefirst order information as combined order information. The serviceprovider may send the combined order information, including the firstorder information and the second order information, to the particularmerchant. The service provider may further schedule a courier to pick upthe combined order from a pickup location of the particular merchant.Thus, the courier may deliver the first order to the first buyer and thesecond order to the second buyer, at the same delivery location or atdelivery locations within a threshold distance of each other.

In some examples, the service computing device may send the invitationto join a combined order to other buyers that are known to the firstbuyer, such as may have been indicated by a contacts list, or the like,received from the first buyer device. In other examples, the otherbuyers who receive the communication may or may not know the firstbuyer, and may be selected to receive the communication based onproximity to the delivery location specified by the first buyer. Forinstance, two or more buyers who participate in a combined order may belocated in the same office building, same apartment complex, sameneighborhood, or the like, and may or may not know each other.

As one example, the first buyer may elect to pause delivery briefly(e.g., 10 minutes, 20 minutes, etc.) to allow other buyers havingdelivery locations within a threshold distance of the delivery locationof the first buyer to participate in a combined order with the order ofthe first buyer. For example, buyers who are currently within thethreshold distance of the first buyer's delivery location may receive,from the service computing device, a broadcasted message, a pushcommunication, or the like, to inform the buyers that if they place anorder from the merchant selected by the first buyer within a specifiedtime, they can receive a discount on their order.

As another example, suppose that when placing the order, the first buyeris at work, but is planning to go home to receive the order.Accordingly, when placing the order, the first buyer may specify thedelivery location to be the home address of the first buyer even thoughthe first buyer is not currently near the home address. Consequently,the other buyers who receive the communication to join the order of thefirst buyer may be within a threshold distance of the first buyer's homeaddress and/or may have delivery locations within a threshold distanceof the first buyer's home address. Accordingly, the other buyers whoreceive the communication to participate in a combined order also may ormay not be currently at their respective delivery locations.

Furthermore, in some examples the buyers may not necessarily order fromthe same merchant when creating a combined order. For example, a firstbuyer may place a first order from a first merchant, and a second buyermay place a second order from a second merchant that is within athreshold distance from the first merchant. Accordingly, since the firstmerchant and second merchant are located within a threshold proximity toone another, the courier may pick up both orders without much additionaltime expenditure and may deliver the respective orders to the deliverylocation(s) of the first buyer and the second buyer. As mentioned above,the delivery location of the first buyer and the delivery location ofthe second buyer may be the same delivery location, or may be deliverylocations that are otherwise within a threshold distance of each other.

In some examples, a buyer who is interested in paying a reduced deliveryfee may be presented with a listing of merchants at which orders arecurrently pending, and which orders have delivery locations within athreshold distance of the delivery location of the buyer. Accordingly,the buyer may select a merchant from this list for placing an order,which may result in a discounted delivery fee for the order. As anotherexample, if the buyer does not care to order from the merchantscurrently available, the buyer may indicate a desire to be notified whenadditional merchants are selected for orders to be delivered to adelivery location within a threshold distance of the buyer's deliverylocation. As still another example, a buyer may indicate a desire to benotified whenever a particular merchant has a pending order that will bedelivered to a delivery location within a threshold distance of thebuyer's delivery location.

As used herein, an order may include a request submitted by a buyer(e.g., a customer) for the acquisition of food items and/or other goods(referred to herein as items) from a merchant. The order information maybe received by the service and sent to the merchant. For example, amerchant may include a restaurant or any other business or other entityengaged in the offering of items for delivery to buyers. Actionsattributed to a merchant herein may include actions performed byemployees or other agents of the merchant and, thus, no distinction ismade herein between merchants and their employees unless specificallydiscussed. In addition, a buyer may include any entity that purchasesitems from a merchant. Buyers may be customers or potential customers ofa particular merchant. The service may receive payment from a buyer foran order and the service may provide payment to the merchant for theorder. Further, the service may provide payment to the courier fordelivering the order.

For discussion purposes, some example implementations are described inthe environment of combining orders for delivery, such as to provide areduction in expenses to buyers. However, implementations herein are notlimited to the particular examples provided, and may be extended toother service environments, other system architectures, other types ofgoods, other advantages, and so forth, as will be apparent to those ofskill in the art in light of the disclosure herein.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example environment 100 for combining orders fordelivery according to some implementations. For instance, theenvironment 100 may enable one or more service computing devices 102 ofa service provider 104 to receive, over one or more networks 106,combinable order information 108 from a plurality of buyers 110(1),110(2), . . . , 110(N). The combinable order information 108 may includeorder information for a plurality of orders associated with a pluralityof respective buyers 110. Based on the combinable order information 108received from the buyers 110, the service computing device 102 may sendcombined order information 112 to a particular merchant 114 of aplurality of merchants 114(1)-114(M). The particular merchant 114 mayreceive the combined order information 112, and may respond withconfirmation information 116 to confirm that the combined order has beenreceived and will be prepared by the particular merchant 114.

In some examples, the combined order information 112 sent to themerchant 114 may identify items 118 ordered by the buyers 110 from theparticular merchant 114. For instance, each merchant 114(1)-114(M) mayoffer one or more items 118(1)-118(M), respectively, which may beordered by buyers 110 for delivery. In some cases, the combined orderinformation 112 may also specify a time at which the combined order isto be picked up by a courier 120 of a plurality of couriers120(1)-120(L). For instance, the confirmation information 116 sent bythe merchant 114 to the service computing device 102 may confirm thepickup time specified by the service computing device 102. In othercases, the combined order information 112 sent to the merchant 114 mayinclude an inquiry as to when the order will be ready, and the merchant114 may include with the confirmation information 116 a specified timeat which the combined order will be ready for pickup.

In either event, in response to receiving the confirmation information116 from the particular merchant 114, the service computing device 102may send combined order information 122 to a particular courier 120 whowill pick up the combined order from the particular merchant 114 anddeliver the combined order to the buyers 110 participating in thecombined order. For instance, each merchant 114(1)-114(M) may beassociated with a respective pickup location 124(1)-124(M), which maytypically be the merchant's place of business. Furthermore, each buyer110(1), 110(2), . . . 110(N) may be associated with a respectivedelivery location 126(1), 126(2), . . . 126(N). In some examples, toenable participation in a combined order, two or more buyers 110 may beassociated with the same delivery location 126 or, alternatively, thedelivery locations 126 of two or more buyers 110 may not be the same,but may still be within a threshold distance of each other.

The combined order information 122 sent to the courier 120 may includethe pickup location for the order, the pickup time, and the deliverylocation for the order. In some examples, the combined order information122 may further include a contract time, i.e., a time by which theservice provider 104 has agreed to have the ordered items 118 deliveredto the buyers 110 at the delivery location(s) 126. Further, in somecases, the combined order information 122 may include an amount that thecourier 120 will be paid if the courier 120 accepts the delivery job,and/or other information related to the combined order.

In the illustrated example, the service computing device 102 of theservice provider 104 is able to communicate with merchant devices128(1)-128(M) over the one or more networks 106. Each merchant device128(1)-128(M) may be associated with a respective merchant114(1)-114(M). Each merchant device 128(1)-128(M) may be a computingdevice, such as a desktop, laptop, tablet, smart phone, or the like, andmay include a respective instance of a merchant application130(1)-130(M) that executes on the respective merchant device128(1)-128(M). For example, the merchant application 130 may beconfigured to communicate with the service computing device 102, such asfor receiving the combined order information 112 and for sending theconfirmation information 116. In some examples, the merchant application130 and the service computing device 102 may communicate with each othervia one or more application programming interfaces (APIs). Further, themerchant device 128 may include one or more output devices, such asspeakers (not shown in FIG. 1), that the merchant application 130 mayuse to audibly notify the respective merchant 114 that an order has beenreceived. Additionally, or alternatively, the merchant device 128 mayinclude a display (not shown in FIG. 1) that the merchant application130 may use for presenting the combined order information 112 to themerchant 114. For instance, the merchant application 130 on the merchantdevice 128 may present the combined order information 112 in one or moreGUIs.

In some examples, the merchant application 130 may provide point-of-sale(POS) functionality to the merchant device 128 to enable the merchant114 to accept payments using the merchant device 128. Alternatively, insome examples, the merchant device 128 may be a fax machine and themerchant 114 may receive the combined order information 112 via afacsimile transmission from the service computing device 102. As stillanother example, the merchant device 128 may be a computing device thatis configured to receive order information via email, instant messaging,or other electronic communication. As still another example, themerchant device 128 may be a phone, and the merchant device 128 mayreceive the combined order information 112 via an SMS (short messagingservice) text message, voicemail, telephone call, or the like.

In addition, the buyers 110(1), 110(2), . . . 110(N) may be associatedwith respective buyer devices 132(1), 132(2), . . . 132(N) that mayexecute respective instances of buyer applications 134(1), 134(2), . . .134(N). For example, buyers 110 may use buyer devices 132, such as smartphones, tablet computers, wearable computing devices, laptops, desktops,or the like, and these buyer devices 132 may have installed thereon thebuyer application 134. The buyer application 134 may enable the buyer110 to select one or more items 118 to purchase from one or more of themerchants 114 to be delivered to the buyer 110 by one or more of thecouriers 120. For example, the buyer application 134 may present one ormore GUIs on a display for enabling the buyer 110 to select one or moreitems for an order.

Further, the buyer application 134 may enable the buyer 110 to place anorder from a merchant 114 in advance, such as for scheduling an orderfor delivery at a later time on the same day, at a specified time on afuture day, or the like. For instance, the buyer 110 may be able toplace an order through the buyer application 134 to have lunch deliveredat a specified delivery location by a specified time on a specified day.The buyer application 134 may further enable the buyer 110 to make apayment for an order using the buyer application 134. For instance, theservice provider 104 may charge a buyer account associated with thebuyer 110 for an amount associated with a particular order. In someexamples, the buyer application 134 and the service computing device 102may communicate with each other via one or more APIs. Additionally, oralternatively, the buyer application 134 may be a web browser, or thelike, and the buyer 110 may navigate to a website associated with theservice provider 104, and may use the website associated with theservice provider 104 to place an order. Thus, in this case, the websitemay provide at least some of the functionality attributed to buyerapplication herein.

In addition, the couriers 120(1)-120(L) may be associated withrespective courier devices 136(1)-136(L) that may execute respectiveinstances of courier applications 138(1)-138(L). For example, couriers120 may use courier devices 136, such as smart phones, tablet computers,wearable computing devices, laptops, or the like, as further enumeratedelsewhere herein, and these courier devices 136 may have installedthereon the courier application 138. The courier application 138 may beconfigured to receive the combined order information 122 from theservice computing device 102 to provide a particular courier 120 withinformation for picking up a particular order from a merchant's pickuplocation 124 and for delivering the order to one or more buyer deliverylocations 126. The courier application 138 may further enable thecourier 120 to respond to the service computing device 102 to confirmacceptance of a delivery job. Additionally, in some cases, the courierapplication 138 may provide the service computing device 102 with anindication of a current location of a particular courier 120. In someexamples, the courier application 138 and the service computing device102 may communicate with each other via one or more APIs. Alternatively,in other examples, the courier device 136 may receive the combined orderinformation 122 via an SMS text message, a voicemail, a telephone call,or the like.

The one or more networks 106 can include any appropriate network,including a wide area network, such as the Internet; a local areanetwork, such an intranet; a wireless network, such as a cellularnetwork, a local wireless network, such as Wi-Fi and/or close-rangewireless communications, such as BLUETOOTH® and BLUETOOTH® low energy; awired network; or any other such network, or any combination thereof.Accordingly, the one or more networks 106 may include both wired and/orwireless communication technologies. Components used for suchcommunications can depend at least in part upon the type of network, theenvironment selected, or both. Protocols for communicating over suchnetworks are well known and will not be discussed herein in detail.Accordingly, the service computing device 102, the merchant devices 128,the buyer devices 132, and/or the courier devices 136 are able tocommunicate over the one or more networks 106 using wired or wirelessconnections, and combinations thereof.

In the illustrated example, the service computing device 102 includes anorder processing module 140 that may be executed on the servicecomputing device 102 to provide, at least in part, the functionalityattributed to the service computing device 102. The order processingmodule 140 may receive the combinable order information 108 from thebuyers 110 and may associate the combinable order information 108 withbuyer information 142 and merchant information 144. For instance, basedon buyer identifying information that may be included with each orderincluded in the combinable order information 108, the order processingmodule 140 may associate particular portions of the combinable orderinformation 108 with particular buyer accounts. As one example, a firstorder of the combinable order information 108 may be associated with afirst buyer account of a first buyer who placed the first order, asecond order of the combinable order information 108 may be associatedwith a second buyer account of a second buyer who placed the secondorder, and so forth. The order processing module 140 may access a buyeraccount included in the buyer information 142 to charge a particularbuyer account for a particular order. For instance, when a buyer signsup for service, or otherwise uses the service, the buyer may provide acredit card or other payment card information to enable the serviceprovider to charge the account of the buyer for orders placed by thebuyer.

Further, based on a particular merchant 114 identified by the combinableorder information 108, the order processing module 140 may associate thecombinable order information 108 with a merchant account of theparticular merchant. The order processing module 140 may access themerchant account to determine contact information for sending thecombined order information 112 to the correct merchant device 128 sothat the particular merchant can receive and provide confirmation of theorder. The order processing module 140 may further access the merchantaccount of the particular merchant to credit payment to the particularmerchant that prepares the order.

In addition, the order processing module 140 may access courierinformation 146 to determine courier contact information for sending thecombined order information 122 to a particular courier 120 of theplurality of couriers 120(1)-120(L), such as to determine whether theparticular courier 120 is willing to accept the delivery job ofdelivering the combined order to the buyers. The particular courier 120may use the courier application 138 on the courier device 136 to receivea message with information about the combined order, and to respond withacceptance of the delivery job if the delivery job is accepted. Theparticular courier 120 may subsequently pick up the combined order fromthe particular merchant 114 and deliver the combined order to theparticular buyers 110 at the specified delivery location(s) 126. Whenthe courier 120 has completed delivery of the combined order to thedelivery location(s) 126, the courier 1220 may use the courierapplication 138 to inform the order processing module 140 that thedelivery has been completed. The order processing module 140 may accessa courier account included in courier information 146 for the particularcourier 120 to credit the courier account of the particular courier 120with payment for the delivery job.

The order processing module 140 may store information associated witheach order as order information 148. For instance, the order information148 may include a day of the week, date, and time at which each order isreceived from the respective buyer 110. The order information 148 mayfurther include, for each order, merchant identifying information; buyeridentifying information; items 118 ordered; the pickup location 124; thedelivery location 126; preparation time for the order; location of thecourier 120 when the courier accepts delivery of the order; time thatthe order is picked up by the courier 120; time that the order isdelivered; amount paid for the order; estimated delivery time providedto the buyer by the service provider; and so forth.

As one example, suppose that a first buyer 110(1) decides to place anorder for delivery. The first buyer 110(1) may access the buyerapplication 134(1) on the first buyer device 132(1) to be presented witha GUI (not shown in FIG. 1) that enables the first buyer 110(1) to placean order. For example, the GUI may present, for selection, informationrelated to items available for delivery from a plurality of differentmerchants. Further, the buyer application may receive, via the GUI, abuyer input to select an item 118 offered by a particular merchant 114of the plurality of merchants 114(1)-114(M). As one example, the firstbuyer 110(1) may scroll through a plurality of different merchants andselect the particular merchant 114 from which to order. The GUI may thenpresent a menu of items offered by the particular merchant 114. Thefirst buyer 110(1) may scroll through the menu and select one or moreitems 118 provided by the particular merchant 114 that the first buyer110(1) would like to have delivered to a delivery location 126(1)associated with the first buyer 110(1).

When the first buyer 110(1) has finished selecting particular items 118for delivery, the first buyer 110(1) may select an option to requestcreation of a combined order to attempt to reduce the delivery fees thatmay be charged for the order. As one example, the buyer application134(1) may attempt to contact nearby buyer devices 132 that may alsohave instances of the buyer application 134 installed thereon, such asthrough Wi-Fi or short range wireless communications, throughcommunication with the service computing device 102, or the like.Accordingly, the buyer application 134(1) may determine that a secondbuyer device 132(2) associated with a second buyer 110(2), and having asecond instance of the buyer application 134(2) installed thereon, iswithin a threshold distance of the first buyer device 132(1). Forinstance, the threshold distance may be limited to being within the sameroom, in the same building, at the same delivery address, in the sameneighborhood, connected to the same Wi-Fi access point, or the like. Asone example, the threshold distance may be sufficiently close to thefirst delivery location 126(1) associated with the first order such thata courier 120 that delivers the combined order will not have to travelmore than a few minutes to deliver a second order to a second deliverylocation 126(2) that may be associated with the second buyer 110(2).

When one or more other buyer devices having the buyer application 134are determined to be within the threshold distance, the first buyerapplication 134(1) may cause the first buyer device 132(1) to send acommunication inviting the nearby buyers to create a combined order. Forexample, the communication may include at least a portion of first orderinformation 150 related to the first order, such as informationidentifying the particular merchant 114 from which the first buyer110(1) intends to order. In response to the communication, suppose thatthe second buyer 110(2) decides to accept the invitation to create acombined order, and selects one or more items 118 from the particularmerchant 114 as a second order. Thus, the first buyer device 132(1) mayreceive, from the second buyer device 132(2) second order information152 related to the one or more items included in the second order to beordered from the particular merchant 114.

In response to receiving the second order information 152, the buyerapplication 134(1) may cause the buyer device 132(1) to send, to theservice computing device 102, combinable order information 108, whichmay include, the first order information 150 and the second orderinformation 152. For example, the first order information 150 mayinclude first buyer account information that may be used to associatethe first order information 150 with a first buyer account. The firstbuyer account may be associated with the first buyer device 132(1) andthe first buyer 110(1). Similarly, the second order information 152 mayinclude second buyer account information that may be used to associatethe second order information 152 with a second buyer account. The secondbuyer account may be associated with the second buyer device 132(2) andthe second buyer 110(2). Additionally, in other examples, the secondbuyer application 134(2) on the second buyer device 132(2) may send thecombinable order information 108, including the first order information150 and the second order information 152. As still another example, thefirst buyer application 134(1) may send the first order information 150to the service computing device 102, and the second buyer application134(2) may send the second order information 152 to the servicecomputing device 102.

The order processing module 140 may combine the first order and thesecond order as a combined order, and send combined order information112 to the particular merchant 114 identified by the first orderinformation 150 and the second order information 152. Additionally, theorder processing module 140 may send the combined order information 122to a particular courier 120 who will pick up the combined order from apickup location 124 of the particular merchant 114. The courier 120delivers the combined order to one or more specified delivery locations.For instance, if the first buyer 110(1) and the second buyer 110(2) haveindicated different delivery locations, the courier 120 may deliver theitems 118 associated with the first order to the first delivery location126(1) associated with the first order, and may deliver the items 118associated with the second order to the second delivery location 126(2)associated with the second order.

As mentioned above, numerous variations will be apparent to those ofskill in the art having the benefit of the disclosure herein. As oneexample, the buyers can create a combined order with friends who arenearby. For instance, each buyer participating in the combined order maybe able to view the order information of each other participant in thecombined order, such as participant's name, items ordered by eachparticipant, amount paid, and so forth. The buyer application 134(1) onthe first buyer device 132(1) may access a contact list of people knownto the first buyer 110(1), or other such information, for determining towhich buyers in the local proximity to send an invitation to join acombined order. In some cases, the participants may all order from thesame merchant for delivery to the same delivery location.

As another example, such as in the case that the first buyer does notnecessarily know the other buyers that are being invited to participatein the combined order, the other buyers may be provided limited orderinformation from the first buyer, e.g., just the name of the merchantwith whom the order will be placed and the time until the order isplaced. For example, one or more buyers may receive a communication thata nearby buyer has placed an order with the first merchant, and thecommunication may invite the one or more buyers to participate in acombined order to order items from the first merchant. Thus, in somecases, the one or more buyers may participate in the combined orderwithout ever knowing the identity of the first buyer, or the itemsordered by the first buyer.

As still another example, a first buyer may select one or more items foran order with a merchant, and may pause the order to provide time forother buyers to participate in a combined order with the order of thefirst buyer. Accordingly, one or more buyers who are near to thedelivery location of the first buyer may be offered the opportunity toorder from the merchant selected by the first buyer to receive areduction in the delivery fee. The one or more other buyers may not evenknow that they are participating in a combined order, but instead merelyknow that they are going to receive a discount if they order items fromthe first merchant before a time limit specified by the first buyer hasexpired. For instance, the first buyer may pause the order for aspecified period of time (e.g., 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 1hour, etc.) to give other buyers an opportunity to join the first buyerin creating a combined order. When the time limit for the pause periodhas expired, if no other buyers have joined the first buyer in orderingfrom the particular merchant, the first buyer's order may be sent by theservice provider to the particular merchant. Alternatively, beforesending the order to the merchant, the service provider may inquire asto whether the first buyer would like to pause the order for anadditional period of time.

As still another example, the first buyer may select one or more itemsto order from a particular merchant and may schedule the order for afuture point in time, such as placing an order in the morning fordelivery at dinnertime. When other buyers having delivery locationswithin a threshold distance of the first buyer's delivery locationbrowse through a listing of merchants, the particular merchant selectedby the first buyer may be presented as having a discounted delivery fee,or the like, based on the ability of the service provider to combine theorder with the paused order of the first buyer. For instance, the otherbuyers may be instructed to place their orders for receiving deliverywithin a timeframe corresponding to a time at which the first buyerrequested delivery of the first buyer's order. Accordingly, the otherbuyers may or may not know that they are participating in a combinedorder, but instead merely know that they are receiving a discounteddelivery fee for ordering from a particular merchant for delivery to aparticular location within a certain timeframe.

As mentioned above, in some examples a combined order may be an order inwhich all of the items included in the order are ordered from the samemerchant. Alternatively, in other examples, a combined order may becreated by ordering from two or more merchants within a thresholddistance of each other, e.g., such that the courier can pick up bothorders with only several minutes of additional time. As still anotheralternative, the service provider may determine that a combined ordercan be created based on a second merchant's pickup location being withina threshold distance of a route that will be traveled by the courierfrom a first merchant to the delivery location. Accordingly, in someexamples, the order processing module 140 may schedule multiple pickupsand deliveries with a single courier. For example, a first buyer mayselect a first merchant with which to place an order. The orderprocessing module 140 may determine other merchants within a firstthreshold proximity to the first merchant, and also other merchantswithin a second threshold proximity to a route between the firstmerchant and the delivery location of the first buyer and/or thedelivery location of the second buyer. Accordingly, the order processingmodule 140 may enable other buyers who wish to participate in a combinedorder with the first buyer to select from any merchant within the firstthreshold distance of the first merchant's pickup location and/or anymerchant within the second threshold distance of the route between thefirst merchant's pickup location and the delivery location(s).

Each order in a combined order may have an associated spoilage time andcontract time. The spoilage time may be the time between when the orderis prepared and when the ordered items are considered to be of degradedquality, e.g., cold, soggy, melted, or otherwise less palatable thanwould be normally expected by the buyer. The contract time is the timeby which the order is originally estimated to be delivered to the buyerwhen the buyer places the order. Accordingly, if the spoilage time andcontract time of the first order permit, the courier may pick up one ormore additional orders from pickup locations that may be nearby to thecourier's route, and which may be delivered to one or more differentdelivery locations within respective contract times and spoilage timesof the one or more additional orders.

As one example, suppose that the courier picks up a first order of aturkey sandwich and a salad with a spoilage time of 30 minutes and acontract time that expires 25 minutes from the pickup time. Further,suppose that along the route to the first delivery location for thefirst order, the courier picks up a second order of a pizza with aspoilage time of 20 minutes and a contract time that expires 20 minutesfrom the pickup time. For example, the second pickup location may bewithin a first threshold distance from the route of the courier, and thesecond delivery location may be within a second threshold distance fromthe first delivery location. The courier may lose several minutesstopping to pick up the second order, but is still able to deliver thefirst order to the first delivery location and the second order to thesecond delivery location before the expiration of the respectivespoilage times or contract times of the two orders.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example GUI 200 that may be presented on a display202(1) associated with the first buyer device 132(1) according to someimplementations. The GUI 200 presents information, such as informationrelated to a first order to be placed by the first buyer using the firstbuyer device 132(1). The GUI 200 includes a delivery address 204 towhich the first order will be delivered. In some examples, the deliveryaddress 204 may be determined by the buyer application based on acurrent location of the first buyer device 132(1). For example, thecurrent location may be determined from GPS information provided by anon-board GPS device, wireless access point information, cell towerinformation, and/or through various other techniques.

In some examples, the delivery location 204 may have been previouslyentered by the first buyer and/or may be a default location that may bechanged by the first buyer through interaction of the first buyer withthe GUI 200. For instance, suppose that when placing the order, thefirst buyer is at work, but is planning to go home to receive the order.Accordingly, the first buyer may specify the delivery location 204 to bethe home address of the first buyer even though the first buyer is notcurrently near the home address. Consequently, in some examples, theother buyers who receive a communication to create a combined order withthe first order may be within a threshold distance of the first buyer'shome address and/or may have delivery locations within a thresholddistance of the first buyer's home address.

The GUI 200 further includes a user icon 206 that the first buyer mayselect to change an account associated with the first order, or toaccess other account information of the first buyer's account.Additionally, the GUI 200 includes a clock icon 208 that the first buyermay select to change a time associated with the first order, such as forscheduling the first order to be delivered at a later time, e.g., laterin the day, on a future date, or the like.

In the illustrated example, suppose that the first buyer has selected aparticular merchant, which in this example is the Tex-Mex Restaurant,which is indicated by an identifying image 210 associated with themerchant, and a text name 212 of the merchant in the GUI 200. Further,suppose that the first buyer has already completed selection of severalitems from a menu of the selected merchant. Accordingly, as indicated at214, the GUI 200 may present the selections made by the first buyer,which may include a listing 216 of the selected items and the price foreach selected item. The listing 216 may further include a tax andgratuity amount 218 to be charged for the first order, a delivery fee220 to be charged for the first order, and an order total amount 222 tobe charged for the first order. If the first buyer desires to make anychanges to the items selected, the first buyer may tap or otherwiseselect an area 224 in the GUI 200 to either add more items or remove aselected item. As indicated at 226, the GUI 200 may further present anestimated delivery time for the first order if the first buyer were toproceed immediately with placement of the first order.

The GUI 200 further includes a plurality of virtual controls that may beselected by the first buyer for performing additional operations withrespect to the first order. For instance, a first virtual control 228may be selected by the first buyer for attempting to reduce the deliveryfee 220 by allowing other orders from other buyers to be combined withthe first order. For example, if the first buyer selects the virtualcontrol 228, the buyer application may perform operations for attemptingto locate other buyers within a threshold distance of the first buyerdevice who may be interested in participating in a combined order withthe first buyer. For instance, the buyer application may access awireless communication interface on the first buyer device 132(1), suchas a Wi-Fi communication interface, BLUETOOTH® low energy (BLE)communication interface, or the like.

In some cases, the buyer application may cause the first buyer device tocommunicate with any other buyer devices that have the buyer applicationinstalled and that are in radio communication with the same Wi-Fi accesspoint, or that are near enough to be able to communicate directly withthe first buyer device using BLE communications, other close range radiocommunications, or other close range wireless communicationtechnologies. Thus, the first buyer device may send a close range radiosignal to communicate with another buyer device that is within range ofthe close range radio signal. Additionally, or alternatively, the firstbuyer device may send a communication through a local wireless accesspoint with which both the first buyer device and another buyer deviceare in local radio communication.

As another example, the buyer application may communicate with ageo-fence set up for a particular area within which the first buyerdevice 132(1) is currently located, and the buyer application may sendthe invitation to participate in the combined order only to other buyerdevices determined to be within the geo-fenced area. For instance, theparticular area may have an open geo-fence that is accessible todetermine any other buyer devices currently within the geo-fenced area,such as based on GPS location information, RFID communications, or thelike.

In some examples, the buyer application may obtain identifyinginformation from the buyer applications on the other buyer devicesbefore sending a communication to invite the other buyers to participatein the combined order. For instance, the buyer application may compareidentifying information obtained from buyer applications on the otherbuyer devices with the first buyer's contacts list. The first buyer mayspecify that the first buyer application is to send an invitation onlyto nearby buyers who are already known to the first buyer. As anotherexample, the GUI 200 may present a list of buyers who have been detectednearby, and the first buyer may select to which of these buyers theinvitation for creating a combined order is sent. Alternatively, ofcourse, in other examples, the buyer application may send thecommunication to any nearby buyer who also has an instance of the buyerapplication installed on that buyer's device.

As another example, the buyer application may send the first orderinformation to the service computing device, and may include anindication that the service computing device is to attempt to locateother buyers who may be interested in creating a combined order with thefirst order. The service computing device may determine the deliverylocation 204 for the first order. The service computing device may senda communication to other buyer devices determined to be within athreshold distance of the delivery location, such as for informing theother buyers of the opportunity for participating in a combined order.As another example, the service computing device may send thecommunication to buyer devices that have been used in the past to placeorders for delivery to delivery locations within a threshold distancefrom the first delivery location.

In some examples, both the buyer application and the service computingdevice may attempt to locate potential buyers to participate in acombined order. Thus, the buyer application on the buyer device 132(1)may attempt to locate nearby buyer devices using short rangecommunications, while the service computing device may also attempt tolocate other nearby buyer devices within a threshold distance of thedelivery location based on location information received from the otherbuyer devices, or past history of buyers who have placed orders from thedelivery location specified by the first buyer. In some cases, buyersmay not want their locations to be tracked by the service computingdevice. Accordingly, if the service computing device does not know thecurrent location of a particular buyer device, the service computingdevice may send an inquiry to the particular buyer device only if theparticular buyer has ordered from a particular delivery locationmultiple times in the past and at a time of day that is near to thecurrent time of day.

When the first buyer selects the first virtual control 228 to attempt tolocate other buyers who may be interested in participating in a combinedorder, the placement of the order may be paused briefly while waitingfor other buyers to be contacted and decide whether to participate inthe order. As one example, the pause may be managed locally by the buyerapplication, and the buyer application may not send the first order tothe service computing device until the paused period of time has elapsedor until the first buyer makes an additional input to send the firstorder (or the combined order) to the service computing device. Asanother example, the first order may be sent to the service computingdevice in response to selection of the virtual control 228, and theservice computing device may hold the order from being sent to themerchant until the threshold time for the pause has expired, or untilthe first buyer instructs the service computing device to send the orderto the merchant.

Thus, the first buyer can elect to delay placement of the order for aperiod of time to allow other buyers sufficient time to create acombined order with the first order. The buyer application may wait fora default period of time (i.e., a threshold time period), and if noother buyers place an order to be combined with the first order, thefirst order may proceed as a single order following expiration of thedefault period of time. In some examples, the first buyer may specify athreshold time period as to how long the first buyer is willing to waitfor others to participate in creating a combined order. As one example,suppose that the default time period is 10 minutes. If the first buyerdesires to specify a different time period, the first buyer may select asecond virtual control 230 that is selectable to allow the first buyerto specify a threshold time period to allow other orders to be combinedwith the first order. Thus, the first buyer may elect to wait for ashorter amount of time than the default time period, e.g., only 5minutes, or a longer amount of time, e.g., 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 30minutes etc. Additionally, if the initial threshold time period expireswith no other buyers accepting the invitation to participant in thecombined order, the first buyer may be presented with an option to waitan additional period of time before placing the first order with themerchant. Further, the threshold time period may be based on a specifiedend time, e.g., the first buyer may specify that the threshold timeperiod ends at 12:00 PM, 12:15 PM, etc.

As another example, if the buyer schedules the delivery for later in theday, then the threshold time period for allowing other buyers toparticipate in the combined order may expire at a point in time based onan estimated preparation time and estimated delivery time for the order.For instance, if the estimated preparation time for the order is 20minutes and the estimated delivery time for the order is 20 minutes,then the threshold time for other buyers to participate in the order mayexpire 40 minutes before the scheduled delivery time. Thus, if the firstbuyer schedules the order for delivery by 6:00 PM, the other buyers maybe able participate in the order until 5:20 PM, at which time the offerfor the delivery discount may end.

In addition, to entice other buyers to order from the same merchant asthe first buyer, the GUI 200 may present a third virtual control 232that the first buyer may select to add a comment about the selectedmerchant to encourage other buyers to combine orders with the firstorder. For example, the buyer may select the third virtual control 232and add a comment recommending that others try the first merchant or tryparticular items offered by the first merchant. Additionally, the GUI200 may present a fourth virtual control 234, which the buyer may selectto place the first order immediately, rather than attempting to create acombined order.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example GUI 300 that may be presented on a display202(2) associated with the second buyer device 132(2) according to someimplementations. As one example, if the second buyer is within athreshold distance of the first buyer device, or other delivery locationassociated with the first order, the GUI 300 may be presented on thedisplay 202(2) in response to the first buyer device or the servicecomputing device sending a communication to the second buyer device132(2) to invite the second buyer to participate in a combined orderwith the first order. For instance, the second buyer device 132(2) mayreceive at least identifying information of the merchant selected by thefirst buyer for placing the first order.

In some examples, the first buyer device or the service computing devicemay send the communication to join in an order to buyers that are knownto the first buyer, such as may have been indicated by a contacts listor the like received from the first buyer. In other examples, the otherbuyers who receive the communication may or may not be known to thefirst buyer, and may be selected to receive the communication based onproximity to the delivery location specified by the first buyer, orbased on having a saved delivery address within a threshold proximity tothe delivery location specified by the first buyer. In some cases, twobuyers who participate in a combined order may be located in the sameoffice building, same apartment complex, same neighborhood, may be inradio communication with the same wireless access point, or the like,and may or may not know each other.

Accordingly, the second buyer device 132(2) may receive a communicationinviting the second buyer to participate in a combined order with thefirst order created by the first buyer. The GUI 300 may presentinformation 302 from the communication including, as indicated at 304,an indication that another buyer, who may be known to the second buyerin some cases, is placing an order with a particular merchant. In otherexamples, however, no identifying information about the first buyer ispresented. Further, the GUI 300 may present a review or other comment306 provided by the first buyer about the particular merchant, which mayhelp entice the second buyer to place an order with the particularmerchant. In addition, the GUI 300 may present an invitation 308 for thesecond buyer to place an order with the particular merchant such as forreceiving a discount delivery fee. Further, the GUI 300 may present animage 310 associated with the particular merchant and the name 312 ofthe particular merchant.

If the second buyer decides to accept the invitation to create acombined order, the second buyer may tap or otherwise select an area 314of the GUI 300 to begin selecting one or more items to include in thesecond order. For example, selecting the area 314 may cause the GUI 300to present a menu of the items available to be selected for deliveryfrom the particular merchant.

As an alternative, in some examples, the second buyer may be presentedwith a virtual control 316 to enable the second buyer to view othermerchants with whom orders may be placed, rather than the particularmerchant 312. For instance, as mentioned above, if one or more othermerchants are within a threshold proximity to the merchant 312, thesecond buyer may be able to place an order with one of these othermerchants and still be able to create a combined order for a discount.Similarly, if one or more other merchants are within a thresholdproximity to a route that the courier will travel from the merchant 312to the first delivery location of the first buyer and/or the seconddelivery location of the second buyer, then in some examples these othermerchants also may be available for selection to create a combinedorder.

As another alternative, if the second buyer does not care for the itemsavailable from the merchant 312, the second buyer may select a secondvirtual control 318 to propose an alternative merchant to the firstbuyer. For example, selection of the virtual control 318 may enable thesecond buyer to send a communication to the first buyer with theproposed alternative merchant for creating a combined order. Thealternative may be presented on the display of the first buyer's deviceand the first buyer may indicate acceptance or may decline thealternative merchant proposal. As still another alternative, the secondbuyer may select a third virtual control 320 to decline the invitationto create a combined order.

If the second buyer chooses to accept the first buyer's invitation tocreate a combined order, the second buyer may select one or more itemsfrom the menu of the merchant 312, and may select a place order virtualcontrol, similar to that discussed above with respect to FIG. 2. Inresponse, the buyer application on the second buyer device may send thatthe second order information to at least one of the first buyer deviceor the service computing device. For example, if the second orderinformation is sent to the first buyer device, the first buyer mayreceive the second order information and may send the combined order tothe service computing device as the combinable order informationdiscussed above with respect to FIG. 1. Alternatively, if the secondorder information is sent by the second buyer device directly to theservice computing device, at least one of the second buyer device or theservice computing device may notify the first buyer device that thesecond order has been placed and combined with the first order. Anynumber of buyers may participate in a combined order using thetechniques discussed above.

Further, the delivery fee or other incentives may be divided among theparticipants of the combined order using any of several techniques. Asone example, the delivery fee or other incentive may be divided evenlyamong the participants of the combined order. As another example, thedelivery fee or other discount may be divided among the participantsbased upon the dollar amount of each order with respect to a totaldollar amount of the combined order.

The service computing device receives the second order information fromat least one of the first buyer device or the second buyer device, andassociates the second order information with the first order informationas a combined order. The service computing device may send informationabout the combined order, including the first order information and thesecond order information, to the particular merchant. The serviceprovider may further schedule a courier to pick up the combined orderfrom a pickup location of the particular merchant. Thus, the courier maydeliver the first order to the first buyer and the second order to thesecond buyer, either at the same delivery location or at specifieddifferent delivery locations that are within a threshold distance ofeach other.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example GUI 400 that may be presented on a display202 associated with a buyer device 132 according to someimplementations. As one example, the GUI 400 may be presented when abuyer accesses the buyer application 134 on the buyer device 132 tobrowse through a listing of merchants from whom the buyer may orderitems for delivery. The buyer application may determine the deliverylocation 204 to which the buyer is seeking delivery and may send theintended delivery location to the service computing device. Forinstance, when the buyer initially opens the buyer application on thebuyer device 132, the buyer application may request that the buyerconfirm a determined delivery location 204, such as by tapping on orotherwise selecting a virtual control (not shown in FIG. 4) presented onthe display 202. When the buyer has verified or otherwise specified thedelivery location 204 for the order, the buyer application may cause thebuyer device to send the delivery location 204 to the service computingdevice.

In response to receiving the delivery location, the service computingdevice may send, to the buyer device 132, a listing of merchants withwhom the buyer is able to place an order. In addition, the servicecomputing device may compare the intended delivery location with anypending orders having delivery locations within a threshold distance ofthe delivery location 204 of the buyer. If there are such pendingorders, the service computing device may be able to offer a discount ondelivery fee or other incentive to the buyer if the buyer is willing toplace an order for delivery with a particular merchant within aparticular time period.

As one example, a buyer who is interested in paying a reduced deliveryfee may be presented with a listing of merchants at which orders arecurrently pending, and which orders have delivery locations within athreshold distance of the delivery location of the buyer. Accordingly,the buyer may select a merchant from this list for placing an order,which may result in a discounted delivery fee for the order. Asmentioned above, the list of merchants available for discounted deliverymay include merchants within a threshold proximity to merchants havingorders pending. As another example, if the buyer does not care to orderfrom the merchants currently available for discounted delivery, thebuyer may indicate a desire to be notified when additional merchants areselected for orders to be delivered to a delivery location within athreshold distance of the buyer's delivery location. As still anotherexample, the buyer may indicate a desire to be notified whenever aparticular merchant has a pending order that will be delivered to adelivery location within a threshold distance of the buyer's deliverylocation.

The GUI 400 may present information about a plurality of merchants fromwhom the buyer is able to order items for delivery, some of whom may beassociated with discounted delivery fees. For example, the buyer mayscroll through the listing of merchants, select a merchant from which toorder, and then be presented with a menu of the items provided by theselected merchant. In the illustrated example, information about threemerchants is presented in the GUI 400, including: an image 402 and aname 404 of a first merchant, i.e., The Gourmet Burger Restaurant; animage 406 and a name 408 of a second merchant, i.e., The Tex-MexRestaurant; and an image 410 and a name 412 of a third merchant, i.e.,The Italian Restaurant.

As one example, suppose that another buyer has already placed an orderwith The Gourmet Burger Restaurant and has placed a pause on the orderto allow time for other buyers to join in creating a combined order.Further, suppose that the other buyer works in the same office buildingas the current buyer, and that 5 minutes remain in the threshold timeperiod before the opportunity to participate in a combined order ends.As an example, the current buyer may have received a communicationinviting the current buyer to create a combined order with The GourmetBurger Restaurant. Alternatively, the current buyer may have merelydecided to access the buyer application to order some lunch and, inresponse, the service computing device may have determined that thedelivery location 204 of the current buyer is within a thresholddistance of the delivery location of the other buyer that has alreadycreated an order with The Gourmet Burger Restaurant. In either case, asindicated at 414, the GUI 400 may present a message that the buyer mayreceive a delivery discount if the buyer places an order with TheGourmet Burger Restaurant within the next 5 minutes. Thus, the currentbuyer may select The Gourmet Burger Restaurant, select one or more itemsto order, and place the order within the specified time threshold, i.e.,5 minutes in this example, to create a combined order and receive adiscount on delivery of the ordered items.

The service may create a combined order between the current buyer andthe other buyer even though the two buyers may not know each other, andhave no knowledge of what the other buyer is ordering from the selectedmerchant. Additionally, in some examples, the other buyer may not evenbe ordering from the same merchant as the current buyer. For example, asdiscussed above, the service computing device may enable the creation ofcombined orders with merchants that are within a threshold distance ofone another, or within a threshold distance of a route between aselected merchant and a delivery location. Consequently, when creating acombined order, the current buyer may be able to select from severalpossible merchants, each of which may be within a threshold distancefrom a particular merchant selected by the other buyer.

As another example, suppose that the current buyer is at work and isplacing an order for lunch. Further, suppose that the service computingdevice accesses the current buyer's account information, determines thecurrent buyer's home address, and determines that another buyer thatlives within a threshold distance of the current buyer's home has placedan order with The Tex-Mex Restaurant for delivery at 6:00 PM thatevening. Accordingly, the service computing device may present with thelisting for The Tex-Mex Restaurant a message 416 offering discounteddelivery fees if the current buyer is willing to join in a combinedorder from The Tex-Mex Restaurant for delivery to the current buyer'shome address at 6:00 PM that evening. As mentioned above, the thresholdtime for allowing other buyers to participate in the combined order mayexpire at a point in time based on an estimated preparation time anddelivery time for the first order. For instance, if the estimatedpreparation time for the first order is 20 minutes and the estimateddelivery time for the first order is 20 minutes, then the threshold timefor other buyers to participate in a combined order with the first ordermay expire 40 minutes before the scheduled delivery time. Thus, if theother buyer scheduled the order for delivery by 6:00 PM, the currentbuyer may be able join in the order until 5:20 PM, at which time theoffer for the delivery discount may end. Further, as mentioned above, insome examples the current buyer may be able to select from among aplurality of merchants that are within a threshold distance from TheTex-Mex Restaurant, and may have until the expiration of the thresholdtime period, i.e., until 5:20 PM in which to join the combined order.However, in some cases, if the preparation time associated with thenearby merchants is longer than 20 minutes, e.g., 30 minutes, then thethreshold time period may be set to end sooner, e.g., 5:10 PM, based onthe longer preparation time.

If the current buyer is not interested in the merchants available to beselected for a delivery discount, the buyer may select from any of theother merchants listed in the GUI 400, such as The Italian Restaurant,or any other merchant presented in the GUI 400. In some cases, asindicated at 418, a message may be presented to indicate that normaldelivery fee prices are in effect for these merchants. Further, in somecases, the current buyer may request to be notified when additionalmerchants become available for discounted delivery, or when a particularmerchant becomes available for discounted delivery.

FIGS. 5 and 6 are flow diagrams illustrating example processes forenabling combined orders according to some implementations. Theprocesses are illustrated as collections of blocks in logical flowdiagrams, which represent a sequence of operations, some or all of whichcan be implemented in hardware, software or a combination thereof. Inthe context of software, the blocks may represent computer-executableinstructions stored on one or more computer-readable media that, whenexecuted by one or more processors, program the processors to performthe recited operations. Generally, computer-executable instructionsinclude routines, programs, objects, components, data structures and thelike that perform particular functions or implement particular datatypes. The order in which the blocks are described should not beconstrued as a limitation. Any number of the described blocks can becombined in any order and/or in parallel to implement the process, oralternative processes, and not all of the blocks need be executed. Fordiscussion purposes, the processes are described with reference to theenvironments, systems and devices described in the examples herein,although the processes may be implemented in a wide variety of otherenvironments, systems and devices.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating an example process 500 forcombining orders for delivery according to some implementations. In someexamples, the process may be executed by the buyer device 132 or byanother suitable computing device.

At 502, the device may present, on a display of the device, informationrelated to items available for delivery from a plurality of merchants.For example, the device may present a graphic user interface thatenables the buyer to select a particular merchant, and select one ormore items to order from the particular merchant.

At 504, the device may receive, as a first order for delivery, aselection of a first item to order from a first merchant of theplurality of merchants. For instance, the buyer may select a particularitem from a particular merchant as a first order. The buyer may or maynot send the first order information to the service computing device atthis time.

At 506, the device may determine that a second device is within athreshold distance of the device. For instance, the device may send aclose range radio signal to communicate with the second device, such asin the case where the second device is within range of the close rangeradio signal. As another example, the device may send a communicationthrough a local wireless access point, such as in the case in which boththe device and the second device are in local radio communication withthe local wireless access point. As still another example, the devicemay receive information related to a geo-fenced area within which thedevice is currently located. For example, the device may receive contactinformation for a plurality of devices within the geo-fenced area thathave an instance of the buyer application installed thereon. As stillanother example, the device may receive information from the servicecomputing device regarding any buyer devices located near to a firstdelivery location and that have an instance of the buyer applicationinstalled.

At 508, the device may send, to the second device, an invitation tocreate a combined order by ordering an item from the first merchant. Forinstance, the device may send the name of the merchant, and anindication that the second buyer can receive an incentive for orderingfrom the particular merchant, such as a reduced delivery fee, if theorder is placed within a threshold period of time.

At 510, the device may receive, from the second device, as a secondorder, a selection of a second item to order for delivery from the firstmerchant. For instance, the second device may send information about thesecond item to the first device. In other examples, the second devicemay send information about a second item directly to the servicecomputing device with an indication that the second item is to becombined with the first item selected by the first buyer as a combinedorder.

At 512, the device may send, to a service computing device, as acombined order, the first order information and the second orderinformation. The device may send information about the first item andinformation about a second item to the service computing device with anindication that these items are included in a combined order.

At 514, the device may send, to the service computing device, with thecombined order, first buyer account information associated with thefirst order and second buyer account information associated with thesecond order. For example, the device may send at least an identifierassociated with the first account and an identifier associated with thesecond account that enables the service computing device to associatethe order for the first item with the first account and the order forthe second item with the second account. As some examples, theidentifier may be a name of the respective buyer, and account numberassociated with the respective buyer, or the like.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram illustrating an example process 600 forcombining orders for delivery according to some implementations. In someexamples, the process may be executed by the service computing device orby another suitable computing device.

At 602, the computing device may receive, from a first buyer deviceassociated with a first buyer, first order information for ordering afirst item from a merchant and an indication of a first deliverylocation. For example, the first delivery location may be determinedbased on a current location of the first buyer device, such as may beindicated by location information received from the first buyer device,or may be specified by the first buyer when initiating the first order.Thus, the computing device may receive, from the first buyer device,location information from one or more location sensors associated withthe first buyer device, and may determine an indicated first deliverylocation based at least in part on the location information from the oneor more location sensors. For instance, the first buyer device mayinclude one or more on-board sensors that can be used to determine ageographic location of the first buyer device, such as based on GPSinformation from a GPS device and/or from other location indicativeinformation, such as nearby cell towers, wireless connection points, andthe like, determined through one or more communication interfaces.

At 604, the computing device may receive, from the first buyer device,an indication to create a combined order with the first order. Forexample, the first buyer may select a virtual control in a userinterface presented on the first buyer device to indicate that the firstbuyer would like to attempt to create a combined order, and thisinformation may be sent to the service computing device.

At 606, the computing device may receive, from the first buyer device, aspecified time associated with the first order as a threshold time forother buyers to participate in the combined order. For example, thespecified time may be a default time, or a time that the first buyerenters into a user interface, during which placement of the first orderis paused to allow other buyers to participate in a combined order withthe first order. In some examples, the specified time may be a scheduleddelivery time, such as for later in the day, or for a different day.

At 608, the computing device may determine a second delivery locationassociated with a second buyer device associated with a second buyer.For example, the computing device may determine whether there are anyother buyer devices currently within a threshold distance of the firstdelivery location. For instance, if buyers currently have the buyerapplication and location information active on the buyer device, thecomputing device may determine buyers who are currently indicated to bewithin a threshold distance of the first delivery location. Thus, thecomputing device may receive, from the second buyer device, locationinformation from one or more location sensors associated with the secondbuyer device, and may determine an indicated second delivery locationbased at least in part on the location information from the one or morelocation sensors. For instance, the second buyer device may include oneor more on-board sensors that can be used to determine a geographiclocation of the second buyer device, such as based on GPS informationfrom a GPS device and/or from other location indicative information,such as nearby cell towers, wireless connection points, and the like,determined through one or more communication interfaces. As anotherexample, the computing device may determine whether any buyer deviceshave placed orders in the past for delivery locations within a thresholddistance of the first delivery location. The computing device may send acommunication to these buyer devices to determine whether there is anyinterest in participating in a combined order. As another example, whena second buyer opens the buyer application on the second buyer device,such as for placing an order, the computing device may compare an thesecond buyer's delivery location with the first delivery location todetermine whether the second buyer's delivery location is within athreshold distance of the first delivery location. Other variations willalso be apparent to those of skill in the art having the benefit of thedisclosure herein.

At 610, the computing device may determine that the second deliverylocation is within a first threshold distance of the first deliverylocation. For instance, the threshold distance may be different fordifferent environments, such as the respective delivery locations beingin the same office building, same apartment complex, same neighborhood,connected to the same wireless access point, radio within a short rangecommunication distance, or the like. As one example, the thresholddistance may be sufficiently close such that the courier does not spendmore than several minutes traveling from the first delivery location tothe second delivery location.

At 612, the computing device may send, to the second buyer device,information related to the merchant selected by the first buyer. Forexample, the information may include information related to a discountor other incentive associated with ordering from the merchant based onthe second delivery location being the same as or close to the firstdelivery location. Further, in some examples, the computing device maysend, to the second buyer device, information related to other merchantsthat are within a threshold proximity to the merchant selected by thefirst buyer, or threshold proximity to a route that the courier willtravel during delivery. The incentive may also be available for theseother merchants based on their being within the threshold proximity tothe merchant or the route.

At 614, the computing device may receive, from the second buyer device,within a threshold period of time, second order information indicating asecond item to order from the merchant for delivery to the seconddelivery location. For instance, the second buyer may have to place anorder within the threshold time, or the opportunity to receive theincentive may end.

At 616, the computing device may send, to a merchant device associatedwith the merchant, combined order information for ordering the firstitem and the second item from the merchant. For example, the servicecomputing device may send the order to the merchant, and may receive aconfirmation from the merchant that the order will be prepared by themerchant.

At 618, the computing device may send, to a courier device associatedwith a courier, combined order information indicating the first deliverylocation, the second delivery location, and a pickup location associatedwith the merchant. For instance, the service computing device may offerthe delivery job to a courier, and provide the pickup and deliverylocation to the courier that accepts the delivery job. In some examples,the computing device may receive electronic communications from courierdevices of couriers who are active for receiving delivery jobs. Forinstance, the computing device may be able to communicate over the oneor more networks with a plurality of courier devices, some of which areassociated with active couriers and some of which are associated withinactive couriers. The computing device may receive signals or otherelectronic communications from a subset of the courier devicesassociated with a subset of respective couriers who are active, or whodesire to become active, and who are willing to receive assignments fordelivery jobs. Further, the computing device may receive locationinformation obtained from one or more location sensors associated witheach courier device of an active courier. For instance, the courierdevices of active couriers may report their current locations to theservice computing device based on information from one or more on-boardsensors, such as based on GPS information from a GPS device and/or otherlocation indicative information, such as nearby cell towers, wirelessconnection points, and the like, determined through one or morecommunication interfaces. Thus, the subset of courier devices associatedwith active couriers may communicate with the computing device, and maysend location information obtained from one or more location sensorsassociated with each courier device. The location information mayindicate respective geographic locations of each of the courier devices.The computing device may determine respective indicated locations of thesubset of courier devices within the service region. Based on theindicated locations, the computing device may select a particularcourier to which to assign the order, so as to minimize courier traveltime to the pickup location. If there is not an active courier nearby,the computing device may send a message to a courier device associatedwith at least one inactive courier for activating the inactive courier.For example, the computing device may send messages to a one or morecourier devices associated with inactive couriers to determine a currentlocation of the inactive couriers and/or to determine whether theinactive couriers are interested in becoming active to start deliveringorders. If there is an inactive courier near the pickup location who isinterested in becoming active, the delivery job may be assigned to thatcourier.

The example processes described herein are only examples of processesprovided for discussion purposes. Numerous other variations will beapparent to those of skill in the art in light of the disclosure herein.Additionally, while the disclosure herein sets forth several examples ofsuitable frameworks, architectures and environments for executing theprocesses, implementations herein are not limited to the particularexamples shown and discussed. Furthermore, this disclosure providesvarious example implementations, as described and as illustrated in thedrawings. However, this disclosure is not limited to the implementationsdescribed and illustrated herein, but can extend to otherimplementations, as would be known or as would become known to thoseskilled in the art.

FIG. 7 illustrates select components of the service computing device 102that may be used to implement some functionality of the combinedordering services described herein. The service computing device 102 mayinclude one or more servers or other types of computing devices that maybe embodied in any number of ways. For instance, in the case of aserver, the modules, other functional components, and data may beimplemented on a single server, a cluster of servers, a server farm ordata center, a cloud-hosted computing service, and so forth, althoughother computer architectures may additionally or alternatively be used.

Further, while the figures illustrate the components and data of theservice computing device 102 as being present in a single location,these components and data may alternatively be distributed acrossdifferent computing devices and different locations in any mannerConsequently, the functions may be implemented by one or more servicecomputing devices, with the various functionality described abovedistributed in various ways across the different computing devices.Multiple service computing devices 102 may be located together orseparately, and organized, for example, as virtual servers, server banksand/or server farms. The described functionality may be provided by theservers of a single entity or enterprise, or may be provided by theservers and/or services of multiple different entities or enterprises.

In the illustrated example, each service computing device 102 mayinclude one or more processors 702, one or more computer-readable media704, and one or more communication interfaces 706. Each processor 702may be a single processing unit or a number of processing units, and mayinclude single or multiple computing units or multiple processing cores.The processor(s) 702 can be implemented as one or more microprocessors,microcomputers, microcontrollers, digital signal processors, centralprocessing units, state machines, logic circuitries, and/or any devicesthat manipulate signals based on operational instructions. For instance,the processor(s) 702 may be one or more hardware processors and/or logiccircuits of any suitable type specifically programmed or configured toexecute the algorithms and processes described herein. The processor(s)702 can be configured to fetch and execute computer-readableinstructions stored in the computer-readable media 704, which canprogram the processor(s) 702 to perform the functions described herein.

The computer-readable media 704 may include volatile and nonvolatilememory and/or removable and non-removable media implemented in any typeof technology for storage of information, such as computer-readableinstructions, data structures, program modules, or other data. Suchcomputer-readable media 704 may include, but is not limited to, RAM,ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, optical storage,solid state storage, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage, RAID storagesystems, storage arrays, network attached storage, storage areanetworks, cloud storage, or any other medium that can be used to storethe desired information and that can be accessed by a computing device.Depending on the configuration of the service computing device 102, thecomputer-readable media 704 may be a type of computer-readable storagemedia and/or may be a tangible non-transitory media to the extent thatwhen mentioned, non-transitory computer-readable media exclude mediasuch as energy, carrier signals, electromagnetic waves, and signals perse.

The computer-readable media 704 may be used to store any number offunctional components that are executable by the processors 702. In manyimplementations, these functional components comprise instructions orprograms that are executable by the processors 702 and that, whenexecuted, specifically configure the one or more processors 702 toperform the actions attributed above to the service computing device102. Functional components stored in the computer-readable media 704 mayinclude the order processing module 140, which may receive and combineorders, and perform various other functions, as discussed herein.Additional functional components stored in the computer-readable media704 may include an operating system 708 for controlling and managingvarious functions of the service computing device 102.

In addition, the computer-readable media 704 may store data used forperforming the operations described herein. Thus, the computer-readablemedia 704 may store: the buyer information 142, including buyer accounts710(1), 710(2), . . . 710(N) associated with to the respective buyers110(1), 110(2), . . . 110(N); the merchant information 144, includingmerchant accounts 712(1)-712(M) associated with the respective merchants114(1)-114(M); the courier information 146, including courier accounts714(1)-714(L) associated with the respective couriers 120(1)-120(L); andthe order information 148. The service computing device 102 may alsoinclude or maintain other functional components and data notspecifically shown in FIG. 7, such as other modules and data 716, whichmay include programs, drivers, etc., and the data used or generated bythe functional components. Further, the service computing device 102 mayinclude many other logical, programmatic and physical components, ofwhich those described above are merely examples that are related to thediscussion herein.

The communication interface(s) 706 may include one or more interfacesand hardware components for enabling communication with various otherdevices, such as over the network(s) 106. For example, communicationinterface(s) 706 may enable communication through one or more of theInternet, cable networks, cellular networks, wireless networks (e.g.,Wi-Fi) and wired networks, as well as close-range communications such asBLUETOOTH®, BLUETOOTH® low energy, and the like, as additionallyenumerated elsewhere herein.

The service computing device 102 may further be equipped with variousinput/output (I/O) devices 718. Such I/O devices 718 may include adisplay, various user interface controls (e.g., buttons, joystick,keyboard, mouse, touch screen, etc.), audio speakers, connection portsand so forth.

FIG. 8 illustrates select example components of the buyer device 132that may implement the functionality described above according to someexamples. The buyer device 132 may be any of a number of different typesof portable computing devices. Some examples of the buyer device 132 mayinclude smart phones and mobile communication devices; tablet computingdevices; laptops, netbooks and other portable computers; wearablecomputing devices and/or body-mounted computing devices, which mayinclude watches and augmented reality devices, such as helmets, gogglesor glasses; and any other portable device capable of sendingcommunications and performing the functions according to the techniquesdescribed herein. Further, in some examples, the buyer device 132 may bea stationary or semi-stationary computing device, such as a desktopcomputer or other device with computing capabilities.

In the example of FIG. 8, the buyer device 132 includes components suchas at least one processor 802, one or more computer-readable media 804,one or more communication interfaces 806, and one or more input/output(I/O) devices 808. Each processor 802 may itself comprise one or moreprocessors or processing cores. For example, the processor 802 can beimplemented as one or more microprocessors, microcomputers,microcontrollers, digital signal processors, central processing units,state machines, logic circuitries, and/or any devices that manipulatesignals based on operational instructions. In some cases, the processor802 may be one or more hardware processors and/or logic circuits of anysuitable type specifically programmed or configured to execute thealgorithms and processes described herein. The processor 802 can beconfigured to fetch and execute computer-readable processor-executableinstructions stored in the computer-readable media 804.

Depending on the configuration of the buyer device 132, thecomputer-readable media 804 may be an example of tangible non-transitorycomputer storage media and may include volatile and nonvolatile memoryand/or removable and non-removable media implemented in any type oftechnology for storage of information such as computer-readableprocessor-executable instructions, data structures, program modules orother data. The computer-readable media 804 may include, but is notlimited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory, solid-state storage,magnetic disk storage, optical storage, and/or other computer-readablemedia technology. Further, in some cases, the buyer device 132 mayaccess external storage, such as RAID storage systems, storage arrays,network attached storage, storage area networks, cloud storage, or anyother medium that can be used to store information and that can beaccessed by the processor 802 directly or through another computingdevice or network. Accordingly, the computer-readable media 804 may becomputer storage media able to store instructions, modules or componentsthat may be executed by the processor 802. Further, when mentioned,non-transitory computer-readable media exclude media such as energy,carrier signals, electromagnetic waves, and signals per se.

The computer-readable media 804 may be used to store and maintain anynumber of functional components that are executable by the processor802. In some implementations, these functional components compriseinstructions or programs that are executable by the processor 802 andthat, when executed, implement operational logic for performing theactions and services attributed above to the buyer device 132.Functional components of the buyer device 132 stored in thecomputer-readable media 804 may include the buyer application 134, asdiscussed above, which may present the buyer with one or more GUIs forcreating orders, some examples of which are described above. Additionalfunctional components may include an operating system 810 forcontrolling and managing various functions of the buyer device 132 andfor enabling basic user interactions with the buyer device 132.

In addition, the computer-readable media 804 may also store data, datastructures and the like, that are used by the functional components.Depending on the type of the buyer device 132, the computer-readablemedia 804 may also optionally include other functional components anddata, such as other modules and data 812, which may includeapplications, programs, drivers, etc., and the data used or generated bythe functional components. Further, the buyer device 132 may includemany other logical, programmatic and physical components, of which thosedescribed are merely examples that are related to the discussion herein.

The communication interface(s) 806 may include one or more interfacesand hardware components for enabling communication with various otherdevices, such as over the network(s) 106 or directly. For example,communication interface(s) 806 may enable communication through one ormore of the Internet, cable networks, cellular networks, wirelessnetworks (e.g., Wi-Fi) and wired networks, as well as close-rangecommunications such as BLUETOOTH®, BLUETOOTH® low energy, and the like,as additionally enumerated elsewhere herein.

FIG. 8 further illustrates that the buyer device 132 may include thedisplay 202. Depending on the type of computing device used as the buyerdevice 132, the display 202 may employ any suitable display technology.For example, the display 202 may be a liquid crystal display, a plasmadisplay, a light emitting diode display, an OLED (organic light-emittingdiode) display, an electronic paper display, or any other suitable typeof display able to present digital content thereon. In some examples,the display 202 may have a touch sensor associated with the display 202to provide a touchscreen display configured to receive touch inputs forenabling interaction with a GUI presented on the display 202.Accordingly, implementations herein are not limited to any particulardisplay technology. Alternatively, in some examples, the buyer device132 may not include a display.

The buyer device 132 may further include the one or more I/O devices808. The I/O devices 808 may include speakers, a microphone, a camera,and various user controls (e.g., buttons, a joystick, a keyboard, akeypad, etc.), a haptic output device, and so forth. Other componentsincluded in the buyer device 132 may include various types of sensors,which may include a GPS device 814 able to indicate locationinformation, as well as other sensors (not shown) such as anaccelerometer, gyroscope, compass, proximity sensor, and the like. Insome cases, the GPS device 814 may be used by the buyer application 134to determine a current geographic location of the buyer device 132.Additionally, or alternatively, the communication interfaces 806 may beused to determine the current location of the buyer device, such asbased on communication with nearby cell towers, wireless access points,and the like. In some examples, the buyer application 134 may send thislocation information to the service computing device as an indicateddelivery location for the associated buyer. Additionally, the buyerdevice 132 may include various other components that are not shown,examples of which include removable storage, a power source, such as abattery and power control unit, and so forth. Further, the courierdevice 136 and/or the merchant device 128 may include hardwarestructures and components similar to those described for the buyerdevice 132, but with one or more different functional components.

Various instructions, methods and techniques described herein may beconsidered in the general context of computer-executable instructions,such as program modules stored on computer-readable media, and executedby the processor(s) herein. Generally, program modules include routines,programs, objects, components, data structures, etc., for performingparticular tasks or implementing particular abstract data types. Theseprogram modules, and the like, may be executed as native code or may bedownloaded and executed, such as in a virtual machine or otherjust-in-time compilation execution environment. Typically, thefunctionality of the program modules may be combined or distributed asdesired in various implementations. An implementation of these modulesand techniques may be stored on computer storage media or transmittedacross some form of communication media.

Although the subject matter has been described in language specific tostructural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understoodthat the subject matter defined in the appended claims is notnecessarily limited to the specific features or acts described. Rather,the specific features and acts are disclosed as example forms ofimplementing the claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: receiving, by a computingdevice, from a first user device, a communication indicating a requestto create a combined order for items offered by one or more merchants,wherein the combined order enables a plurality of users to independentlypurchase individual ones of the items from the one or more merchants;creating the combined order based on a selection received from the firstuser device of a first item from a first merchant of the one or moremerchants, wherein the first user device is associated with a first userof the plurality of users; determining a first location associated withthe first user device; determining that a second location associatedwith a second user device is within a threshold distance of the firstlocation associated with the first user device, wherein the second userdevice is associated with a second user of the plurality of users; basedat least partially on determining that the second location is within thethreshold distance of the first location, sending the informationrelated to creation of the combined order to the second user deviceassociated with the second user; receiving, from the second user deviceassociated with the second user, a selection of a second item from oneof the first merchant or a second merchant of the one or more merchants;and processing, by the computing device, the first item and the seconditem for the combined order as a single order to perform at least oneaction.
 2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein processing thefirst item and the second item for the combined order as a single orderto perform at least one action comprises assigning delivery of the firstitem and the second item for the combined order to a same courier todeliver the first item to the first location associated with the firstuser device and deliver the second item to the second locationassociated with the second user device.
 3. The method as recited inclaim 1, wherein creating the combined order further comprises sending,to the second user device, information related to creation of thecombined order to cause, at least in part, the information related tothe creation of the combined order to be presented in a user interfaceon the second user device.
 4. The method as recited in claim 1, whereinthe second location is at least one of a past delivery locationassociated with the second user device, or an indicated current locationof the second user device.
 5. The method as recited in claim 1, whereinsending the information related to creation of the combined order to thesecond user device further comprises sending, to the second user device,information related to the one or more merchants based on the selectionof the first item received from the first user device.
 6. The method asrecited in claim 1, wherein creating the combined order includesassociating a time threshold with the combined order for limiting anamount of time for the plurality of users to participate in the combinedorder.
 7. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein creating thecombined order comprises sending, to the second user device, acommunication including information identifying the one or moremerchants to cause, at least in part, information related to thecombined order and the one or more merchants to be presented in a userinterface on the second user device.
 8. The method as recited in claim1, wherein creating the combined order includes sending informationabout the first merchant and the second merchant to the second userdevice, based on determining the second merchant is eligible for thecombined order, to cause, at least in part, information related to thecombined order, the first merchant and the second merchant to bepresented in a user interface on the second user device, wherein thesecond merchant is determined to be eligible for the combined orderbased on at least one of: the second merchant is within a secondthreshold distance of the first merchant, or the second merchant withina third threshold distance of a route between the first merchant and thelocation associated with the first user device.
 9. A method comprising:receiving, by a computing device, from a first user device of aplurality of user devices, a communication indicating a request tocreate a combined order associated with one or more items offered by amerchant, wherein the combined order enables a plurality of users toindependently purchase the one or more items from the merchant; creatingthe combined order, wherein the combined order is accessible by theplurality of user devices for adding items to the combined order;receiving a selection of a first item from the first user device, thefirst user device associated with a first location; determining that asecond location associated with a second user device is within athreshold distance of the first location associated with the first userdevice; sending the information related to creation of the combinedorder to the second user device based at least partially on determiningthat the second location associated with the second user device iswithin the threshold distance of the first location associated with thefirst user device; receiving a selection of a second item from thesecond user device; receiving, from a courier device, locationinformation indicating a location of the courier device; and processing,by the computing device, the first item and the second item selected forthe combined order as a single order by, based on the locationinformation, assigning delivery of the first item and the second itemfor the combined order to a same courier to deliver the first item tothe first location associated with the first user device and deliver thesecond item to the second location associated with the second userdevice.
 10. The method as recited in claim 9, wherein the computingdevice receives the location information from the courier device via anapplication programming interface.
 11. The method as recited in claim 9,wherein creating the combined order further comprises associating a timethreshold with the combined order for limiting an amount of time forcompletion of the combined order.
 12. The method as recited in claim 9,wherein the location associated with the second user device is at leastone of a past delivery location associated with the second user device,or an indicated current location of the second user device.
 13. Themethod as recited in claim 9, wherein sending, to the second userdevice, the information related to the creation of the combined orderfurther comprises sending, to the second user device, informationrelated to the merchant to cause, at least in part, information relatedto the combined order and the merchant to be presented in a userinterface on the second user device.
 14. The method as recited in claim9, wherein sending, to the second user device, the information relatedto the creation of the combined order further comprises sending acommunication to the second user device to cause an invitation to jointhe combined order to be presented on a display of the second userdevice.
 15. The method as recited in claim 9, further comprising:determining a contact list associated with the first user device; andsending the information related to creation of the combined order to thesecond user device further based on determining that the second userdevice is associated with a contact included in the contact listassociated with the first user device.
 16. The method as recited inclaim 9, wherein: there are a plurality of the merchants; and creatingthe combined order includes determining that the plurality of merchantsare at least one of: within a first threshold distance of each other; orwithin a second threshold distance of a route between a selectedmerchant and the location associated with the first user device.
 17. Asystem comprising: one or more processors; one or more computer-readablemedia storing executable instructions that, when executed by one or moreprocessors, configure the one or more processors to perform operationscomprising: receiving, from a first user device of a plurality of userdevices, a communication indicating a request to create a combined orderfor items offered by one or more merchants, wherein the combined orderenables a plurality of users to independently purchase individual onesof the items from the one or more merchants; creating, based on aselection received from the first user device of a first item from afirst merchant, the combined order, wherein the first user device isassociated with a first user of the plurality of users; determining afirst location associated with the first user device; determining that asecond location associated with a second user device is within athreshold distance of the first location associated with the first userdevice, wherein the second user device is associated with a second userof the plurality of users; based at least partially on determining thatthe second location is within the threshold distance of the firstlocation, sending the information related to creation of the combinedorder to the second user device associated with the second user;receiving, from the second user device of the plurality of user devices,a selection of a second item from one of the first merchant or a secondmerchant of the one or more merchants; and processing the first item andthe second item added to the combined order as a single order to performat least one action.
 18. The system as recited in claim 17, wherein theoperation of processing the items added to the combined order as asingle order to perform at least one action comprises assigning deliveryof the first item and the second item added to the combined order to asame courier to deliver the first item to the first location associatedwith the first user device and deliver the second item to the secondlocation associated with the second user device.
 19. The system asrecited in claim 17, wherein the operation of creating the combinedorder further comprises sending, to the second user device, informationrelated to creation of the combined order.
 20. The system as recited inclaim 17, wherein the second location is at least one of a past deliverylocation associated with the second user device, or an indicated currentlocation of the second user device.
 21. The system as recited in claim17, wherein the operation of sending, to the second user device, theinformation related to the creation of the combined order furthercomprises sending information related to the one or more merchants tocause, at least in part, the information related to the combined orderand the information related to the one or more merchants to be presentedin a user interface on the second user device.
 22. The system as recitedin claim 17, wherein creating the combined order includes sendinginformation about the first merchant and the second merchant to thesecond user device, based on determining the second merchant is eligiblefor the combined order, to cause, at least in part, information relatedto the combined order, the first merchant and the second merchant to bepresented in a user interface on the second user device, wherein thesecond merchant is determined to be eligible for the combined orderbased on at least one of: the second merchant is within a secondthreshold distance of the first merchant, or the second merchant withina third threshold distance of a route between the first merchant and thelocation associated with the first user device.